Call of Duty: Modern Warfare for PlayStation 4: Everything you need to know

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is a gaming institution. The original single-player story and the multiplayer experience was a masterclass in how to make a first-person shooter and now Activision is hoping it can make lightning strike twice.

Rebooted classic

Infinity Ward has gone back to the beginning of the Modern Warfare series, but they aren't doing a remake. This new game will have a completely new single-player storyline with some of the original characters. It's a reboot rather than a remake

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Update September 12, 2019: Open Beta launched

Today the open beta has launched for the PlayStation 4, at least if you pre-ordered. If you wait until Septemeber 14, you will be able to play on the PlayStation 4 without a pre-order.

You can get yourself set up to play the beta by checking out our how to article here. So far the beta is just multiplayer and limited to level 10 and under, but it does give you an idea of how the multiplayer will work and how the guns handle.

Go and check it out if you have time. The beta will be on for the next three weekends, so plenty of time to try it out before launch.

Update July 29, 2019: Killstreak confirmed

Today Activision has confirmed that killstreaks will be coming back to the New Modern Warfare. We are unsure if that means scorestreaks for support classes will be going away, though we hope not.

The killstreaks shown in the tweet are pretty great. We have the Juggernaught armor — previously seen in MW3 and Ghosts — as well as an Infantry Assault Vehicle, and a white phosphorous airdrop. No word on how many kills these killstreaks will require but they look to be pretty high powered.

Activision also mentioned that they would be showing us the first multiplayer gameplay on August 1, 2019, so look out for more details about that soon.

Update June 6, 2019: Co-op mode announced

While the photos featured above show no gameplay or even multiple people in the shot, we are assured by Infinity Ward that these are, in fact, images from the new co-op mode. Called Spec-Ops, we are told it will be like the old Spec Ops from Modern Warfare 3 but with more oomph, more zing.

Who knows what that means, but Infinity Ward has mentioned that the co-op will bridge the storyline between the single-player game and the multiplayer modes, bringing them all into line as a single narrative piece. I'm really interested in how that is going to work and what it will mean for Call of Duty going forward.

What is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare?

Back in 2007, Call of Duty was the cream of the FPS crop, but mostly the games focused on World War 2. While that offered some excellent multiplayer fun, the storylines became a little slow and eventually became stale. Modern Warfare, developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision, was the first game to push the franchise forward into the modern era with all that entails — Advanced weaponry, drones, and tanks were prevalent.

What really set the game apart though was the single-player story arc. It wasn't just an afterthought, it was a fully realized story and a pretty damning indictment of the War on Terror that was happening at the time. The story had some seriously shocking moments, but it also introduced us to some pretty memorable characters, such as Captain Price.

Of course, the multiplayer was pretty darn good, too. The smoothness of the multiplayer, the inclusion of new weapons with laser scopes, and killstreaks that became a signature part of the Call of Duty franchise, all fused together to make the OG Modern Warfare a multiplayer masterpiece.

Is this a sequel?

No, not really. Both Modern Warfare 2 and 3 were direct sequels. This is more of a reboot. Featuring some of the same characters — like the aforementioned Captain Price — this story is an even darker retelling of the Modern Warfare mythos.

This makes a lot of sense. War is and always has been a morally gray place to be, and if you want to make a game based on the current theater of war, you need to get your hands dirty. In fact, Price says it in the trailer; "We get dirty, so the world stays clean." This moral ambiguity is going to be a theme all the way through the game, as you get to see the game through two different perspectives.

These perspectives are on opposite sides on the conflict and I think Infinity Ward is hoping to show the effect war has on everybody anywhere near the combat. You are going to be playing as both Team Bravo, the western soldiers, and freedom fighters in the Middle East. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, as Infinity Ward is known for offering up moral choices to the player, and I think we are likely to see more of those choices here.

What kind of gameplay is it?

Little is known about specific gameplay on Modern Warfare. The trailer is said to be in-game footage, but it doesn't show us any real gameplay, just cut scenes. We know it will be an FPS like all the others, of course, but we just don't know what new mechanics we might see.

This section will get bigger as Infinity Ward dribbles out gameplay information in the coming months. Watch this space.

What kind of maps will there be?

Right now, we aren't sure. The game centers around Russian interference in the Middle East, with terrorist attacks happening in European cities. There looks to be a level in London after some sort of explosion, and you are fighting off a terrorist cell. It's a brief section of the trailer, but you can see the distinctive Metropolitan Police uniform.

We haven't seen any multiplayer gameplay yet, so we don't know what maps will be available but can infer some things. It's extremely likely we will see the key areas of the game made into multiplayer maps. London is bound to be one, as is the compound that all those protestors storm in the trailer. If you look at the last picture above it has a definite Nuketown vibe to it, don't you think?

Will there be a Zombies Mode?

In a recent interview with PlayStation Lifestyle, Campaign Gameplay Director Jacob Minkoff said: "We're trying to create an authentic, realistic feeling world. We don't have the flexibility to do something like put zombies in the game." he goes on to say that zombies "...would compromise the feeling of playing in a world that feels realistic and authentic and relative to today's conflicts and things we face."

So no, we aren't going to get Zombies this time around. That's always been kind of a Treyarch thing anyway — Treyarch is the developer who makes the non-Modern Warfare CoD games — so I wasn't really expecting to see them in this game.

What game modes are there then?

We know that there will be a single-player campaign, a co-op campaign, and a multiplayer mode, but that's really all Infinity Ward has told us so far. Apparently, they aren't quite ready to talk about anything other than the single-player experience. We do know that the co-op campaign follows directly on from the solo missions, which is interesting. Normally in co-op games, you just play the same game as the single-player, but with extra people. This shows how much thought Infinity Ward is putting into the story if you have another storyline after the first.

As far as multiplayer goes, we have no idea what game modes there will be. There could be a Battle Royale mode, but right now Infinity Ward is being really tight lipped about it. We will have more on this in the coming months before launch

When and where can I get it?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is just starting it's marketing push so we still have a while to go before release. The current release date is earmarked for October 25, 2019, so expect a lot more information to surface before then.

The preorder is already up so if you are sure you are going to buy Modern Warfare, go ahead and pick it up.

Rebooted classic

Infinity Ward has gone back to the beginning of the Modern Warfare series, but hey aren't doing a remake. This new game will have a completely new single-player storyline with some of the original characters. It's a reboot rather than a remake